RedJaron
Splendid
- Sep 20, 2011
- 4,225
- 0
- 23,160
This build seemed like an exercise in frustration and seems to be a great example of why I don't try to play munchkin and min/max a build. Instead of whittling every possible dollar down and risking some kind of part conflict, I just buy what I need while trying to stay in a budget's general area. That of course isn't usually a luxury for the SBM, so I guess it's part of the challenge.
Semi-tangentially, I consider the case a performance part since it's so critical to the system's cooling, and therefore the sustainable overclocks that so often eke out value wins. I know not everyone would agree with me on that, so maybe you could go back to 6 / 12 / 18, but half the cost of the case counts toward performance parts?
I'm not fully certain where the budgets should go at this point. Having built a few computers in the last months, I still like the idea of $500 for performance parts at the low end. That still offers some challenge and give-and-take to piece something together that offers respectable performance that the masses can actually afford, so I like keeping that as the low end. Maybe $500 / $900 / $1300 if you want to keep tighter budgets or 5 / 11 / 16 to loosen them up.
I have mixed feelings about 6 / 12 / 18. I think it's because most machines I recommend to people, and those I would use myself, fall between $700 - $900 range. So while Paul does great with his $600, it usually makes me said to think that if he had just a little bit more it could be a truly great build. At the same time Don's machines will often feel a little wasteful/overkill for what I'd be willing to pay for. Personal preference, eh?
I think above $1800 starts getting into the realm of fantasy where you can put in just about anything you could possibly want. It's more like "let's put the very best of each component together and see what happens." That's a fine experiment, but it loses some prestige when you no longer need to balance pros and cons
I honestly wouldn't mind seeing another "Sweet-Spot Shoot-out." Wasn't the last one $600 / $800 / $1000? This time I'd use $800 / $1000 / $1200 points, just to make things a little more premium. Actually, what if you went back to themed SBMs? That way you're not always trying to outdo yourselves with only three months' change in between. If you cycled through four main themes, you could go a year between similar machines to track how changes are really happening in hardware. Q1 could be all out gaming min / maxing ( put the majority of the scoring weight on the games, ) Q2 could be the sweet spot challenge ( balanced score weight, ) Q3 could be ITX ( balanced score weight, ) and Q4 could be workstation w/ a side of games ( big emphasis on professional apps, drop gaming to 10%. )
Semi-tangentially, I consider the case a performance part since it's so critical to the system's cooling, and therefore the sustainable overclocks that so often eke out value wins. I know not everyone would agree with me on that, so maybe you could go back to 6 / 12 / 18, but half the cost of the case counts toward performance parts?
I'm not fully certain where the budgets should go at this point. Having built a few computers in the last months, I still like the idea of $500 for performance parts at the low end. That still offers some challenge and give-and-take to piece something together that offers respectable performance that the masses can actually afford, so I like keeping that as the low end. Maybe $500 / $900 / $1300 if you want to keep tighter budgets or 5 / 11 / 16 to loosen them up.
I have mixed feelings about 6 / 12 / 18. I think it's because most machines I recommend to people, and those I would use myself, fall between $700 - $900 range. So while Paul does great with his $600, it usually makes me said to think that if he had just a little bit more it could be a truly great build. At the same time Don's machines will often feel a little wasteful/overkill for what I'd be willing to pay for. Personal preference, eh?
I think above $1800 starts getting into the realm of fantasy where you can put in just about anything you could possibly want. It's more like "let's put the very best of each component together and see what happens." That's a fine experiment, but it loses some prestige when you no longer need to balance pros and cons
I honestly wouldn't mind seeing another "Sweet-Spot Shoot-out." Wasn't the last one $600 / $800 / $1000? This time I'd use $800 / $1000 / $1200 points, just to make things a little more premium. Actually, what if you went back to themed SBMs? That way you're not always trying to outdo yourselves with only three months' change in between. If you cycled through four main themes, you could go a year between similar machines to track how changes are really happening in hardware. Q1 could be all out gaming min / maxing ( put the majority of the scoring weight on the games, ) Q2 could be the sweet spot challenge ( balanced score weight, ) Q3 could be ITX ( balanced score weight, ) and Q4 could be workstation w/ a side of games ( big emphasis on professional apps, drop gaming to 10%. )
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